


Trusting Pepper

by waterbird13



Series: Tumblr Fics [126]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Natasha Has Trust Issues, Pepper and Tony have an open relationship, Polyamory, lesbian natasha romanoff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2016-08-12
Packaged: 2018-08-08 08:39:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7750816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterbird13/pseuds/waterbird13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha has known she likes women forever. Not because men hurt her, because women can hurt too. She just likes them.</p><p>That doesn't mean she trusts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trusting Pepper

**Author's Note:**

> This is another piece from Tumblr.
> 
> Warnings: Natasaha discusses her lesbianism and what it means to her a bit. She has serious trust issues. Pepper and Tony are in a relationship, Pepper is also trying to begin one with Natasha and everyone is one hundred percent cool with that.

Beatrice. Jenny. Nancy. Just some of the names her lovers have known her as.

Blonde, brunette. Long hair, short. Heavy makeup, countoring her face dramatically. Colored contacts.

No lover has she ever met twice. No lover has she ever really met at all.

They meet Beatrice, the blonde-haired, blue-eyed shop assistant. Or Jenny, who has an exceptionally sharp nose and works in town politics. Or any one of dozens of other mix-and-match aliases.

When they get together, it’s one night. A date, sex if she feels it. And she keeps her composure, her control, and then she’s gone. It’s all over.

Natasha Romanoff knows better than to trust. People have messed her up, time and time again.

People think she’s a lesbian because men hurt her. Men have hurt her, and she won’t debate it with anyone, maybe that did mess her up, but she likes girls, always remembers that, remembers being a Black Widow, a Red Room graduate, so proud to be a girl standing among these other strong girls, so eager for them.

Besides. Women have hurt her too. She won’t lie about that either, although a person would have to get closer than she allows just about anyone to ask.

She takes the Stark job like any other, but the dossiers didn’t prepare her for her reaction to Ms. Potts. Fiery, competent, brilliant, beautiful, and Natasha just wants her.

Pepper wants Stark.

Except…Natasha is a spy. She sees things. She figures things out. And what she figures out is that Pepper would be more than amenable to more than one lover. To one of them being a woman. And Stark is more than amenable to letting her have that.

Natasha stays away. Pepper is not a woman to be met by any of her aliases. She is not a woman for one night.

She is also probably not a woman to be trusted, not that there ever were one. Pepper is smart and powerful, and Natasha knows how smart and powerful people use those who make themselves weak to them.

Pepper Potts was…courting her. It’s stupid, a stupid word. A power play, maybe, is a better way to think about it. Except Pepper takes her rejection in stride, lets her set the pace, just offers gifts and lunches, smiles and soft affection.

Somehow, she becomes the first person in twenty years to slip beneath Natasha’s guard.

One night, once Stark’s left for his workshop, she sits beside Pepper on the couch. “My name is Natalia Romanova,” she says quietly. “You can call me Natasha. I would…like to take you up on your offer.”

It physically hurts to put herself in this position, to open up even this much, but then Pepper smiles, and her smile, bright and happy as it is, is like a balm, and Natasha thinks if she gets healed this way every time, she will take the pain again and again.


End file.
